EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Capturing Transient Metal Cycling in Soils and Groundwater through Real-Time Electrochemical Measurements

This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an Assistant Professor and training for a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This work is conducted in collaboration with Greg Druschel at Indiana University, Indianapolis. Through the fellowship, the PI will build and deploy sensors that track rapid changes in metal concentrations in streams, soils, and groundwater. Brief events like rainstorms and floods send pulses of oxygen-rich water underground that can change the chemical mobility of metals and may flush them into rivers and aquifers, affecting drinking water. To determine the impact of these events on water quality, this project will combine laboratory experiments with field monitoring on an active floodplain. The results will help water managers identify when sudden water quality changes may pose a risk to drinking water supplies and ecosystem health. This project will also establish new environmental measurement capabilities at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with future applications for research in groundwater remediation, ecosystem restoration, wastewater treatment, and other fields. This project will investigate how short-lived oxygenation events control the speciation and mobility of redox-active metals in floodplain soils and groundwater. These brief events may impact water quality, but their effects on metal oxidation, retention, and export remain poorly understood because conventional sampling methods cannot capture abrupt changes in porewater chemistry. To address this gap, laboratory experiments will quantify element-specific microbial and abiotic oxidation kinetics by exposing sterilized and untreated sediment samples to controlled pulses of oxygen. Following each pulse, electrochemical measurements will track changes in iron, manganese, copper, lead, zinc, and related redox species. Field work will expand upon these results by using in situ potentiostats and complementary sensors to determine how event duration and seasonal timing govern metal export. The fellowship will advance faculty expertise in environmental electrochemistry and provide intensive laboratory and field training for a graduate student. Collectively, these activities will expand the capacity for water-quality research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and will support workforce development for students, scientists, and water-management professionals across Nevada. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows (ERF). The ERF program supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.